Median XL 2017

As anticipated in this topic, a new major version is coming to Median XL this year. We will consolidate some changes from the seasonal patches with balance paradigms introduced in sigma, which we feel should be implemented as soon as possible. Many of these changes will be aimed at making the game more intuitive, since the community is growing and we notice players getting lost early or feel overwhelmed by many concepts at once. Since most of median's content is in the endgame, we want to make the progression smoother and introduce concepts with time rather than all at once. To accomplish many of these changes, we need to drop character compatibility with the earlier patches. This will allow us to do tweaks that we weren't able to do for 5 years now, so expect some big changes.

> Some features/concepts will be revealed here, some in the upcoming weeks and some when the patch notes arrive. > The patch is expected to be released somewhere around may. Exact date will be announced some day.

M2017 Core

The new core adds a big set of features that we were unable to implement up to this day, such as extended areas, integrated map reveal, auto-gold pickup, removal of damage/health caps, and much more.LIST OF FEATURES

Damage Rework

Probably one of the coolest changes in this patch, the damage rework by suchbalance. It consists of reducing monster health and character damage by a factor of 8 everywhere. In theory the damage will still feel the same, however this change brings a lot of good features. This will allow us to get rid of Heroic Shields, prevent any kind of damage cap issues, numbers will be smaller and simpler, and possibly, PVP battles will last longer as well.

Speed Rework

The attack/cast speed of many weapon types, such as orbs, wands, etc. are unnecessarily low, rendering these weapon types useless many times. That's why they will be increased greatly, to allow new builds to be made.

Seasonal Reworks

Several changes from the seasonal multiplayer patches will be implemented to the single-player patch as well. Some of these changes were proven very effective to reducing the time spent on the horadric cube, and by that, make the game just more interesting. Several other features from this and the previous seasons will be implemented as well. You can find the patch notes here.

Mystic Orbs Rework

We'll reduce the time spent cubing even more by making the mystic orbs more robust and thus, practical. Instead of +2 required level, it will be +4, and the stats will be increased accordingly. This also allows us to use more precise numbers and make orbs more balanced the one to the other. Many orbs will be re-balanced, some added, and some removed, such as the pierce orbs, since those are one of the biggest responsibles of the creation of heroic shields, and what makes them so bad. Finally, unique mystic orbs will be reworked as well, since most of them are bad.

Other Changes

There are lots of changes. Things like oskill icons. Act town maps will be reworked as well, to mark the new era, and towns such as Pandemonium Fortress & Harrogath will be reverted to the originals (since they are simply better). There will be many changes releated to cube recipes too. You can obviously expect new endgame content as well, such as new uberquests and items. But details will be revealed later.

Massive thanks to the entire team and to the community for supporting us.Stay tuned for more!